Anti-props to the Fox network, which has picked up this show into the foreseeable future. As Sars said in the forums, we're in for the long haul
Scenes from episodes. No bras. Lipschultz in trouble. Slow-lita in trouble. Mr. Senate throws things. Principal Steve hits people. Marla's crazy. Lauren and Harry aren't seeing anyone. The superintendent is mean. Parents are yelling.
The hallway. Louisa the Secretary brings Principal Steve up to date on the school's vital signs. She's like the chorus in a Shakespeare play: exposition personified. She is not, in fact, the school secretary. She's the Exposition Fairy. And she says, "I spoke with Detective Danby. No arrests over the weekend. No automobile accidents." Steven is pleased. She goes on, "The infirmary is filled with sleeping Desegs again. We've also got some busted plumbing in the basement. Smells like sewage. Maintenance is working on it, but it smells pretty foul down there. Remember you have that school board meeting Wednesday night." Thank you, Exposition Fairy! There shall be a bright, shiny ingot of the purest gold in your future, if you promise to return, bearing baskets brimming with more precious exposition, later in the episode! Also, I could barely buy Lipschultz using the word Desegs. The Exposition Fairy using it is really unbelievable.
A classroom. For some reason, Scott "Anthony Heald" Guber is teaching a class. WHY IS HE TEACHING A CLASS!? WOULD SOMEBODY PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT HIS JOB IS AT THIS DAMN SCHOOL! Is he the lawyer? Is he the Vice-Principal? It doesn't help that he appears to be teaching a class on Morality. "So honesty," he's saying, "complete honesty is called for in every situation. Is that your position, Ms. Harris?" The student agrees, because "there's no such thing as a good liar." Okay, has she been watching this bullshit about missing ballots in Florida? Because the whole Bush family is an excellent group of liars, as far as I'm concerned. Certainly a cyborg like Anthony Heald is capable of lying well. Anyhow, he asks the intrepid student if she'd be honest with a retarded person who was badly dressed. She says, "If he wasn't mentally right, then I wouldn't want to hurt his feelings." Anthony Heald chuckles. Ha ha ha. Foolish young person. Not yet comfortable with shades of moral relativism. He says, "Why don't you tell us your criterion for honesty, Ms. Harris. Whether someone's feelings would be hurt? The mental acuity of the person you're talking with? Whether a greater good is served by dishonesty?" Meanwhile, everyone in the classroom starts snickering and pointing. They're probably laughing because the school lawyer has wandering into their classroom and started lecturing them for no reason. No, wait, they're laughing because Anthony "Freaks and Geeks" Ward is hanging upside down outside the window. So it's time for some wacky vaudevillian banter. "What are you doing?" "Not a whole lot, sir." Ba dum bum.
Chapter Three
Opening Credits. In that they "open" bleeding wounds in my eardrums with their unbelievably bad music. Also, you know what? The credit music seems to be at odds with the actual tone of the show, which is a lot less gritty than the sitars and the slow-mohair seem to suggest. The show itself is kind of wacky and bouncy and sappy, but these credits get it all wrong. Or the show has it wrong. One of the two.
Firemen are untying Anthony Ward while Anthony Heald explains to Principal Steve-o what the kid claims happened. Actually, he scrolls down the options presented to him on the insides of his electro-corneas, and selects: "He says he was up on the roof practicing square knots when he fell." This-Has-Got-To-Stop says, "This has got to stop." He approaches young Master Ward and asks him if he's all right. "Yes," he says, "Please don't teach me any more jujitsu." If had a nickel for every time I had to say that to my high school principaloh, you know. Anyway, no one's coming forward with any information, but Steve says to hold off on calling the police. "Have him checked out, and then get him to my office." Anthony Heald nods, and throws a helicopter pilot to his death. Not really, but, see, because that happens in Terminator 2. I'm gonna keep doing those, even though I'm told that Robert Patrick is actually on TV now, on some other show on this network. But who cares?
The hallway. Marla Hendricks and Harvey Lipschultz are planning their team-teaching strategy. Harvey suggests good cop-bad cop, but they can't agree on who will be which. "The kids are already afraid of you," argues Harvey, "because they think you have mental problems. I mean that as a compliment." In another astonishingly convenient coincidence for the cameraman, just like last episode, the conversation important to the plot is going on in this very hallway, and reaches its most crucial point just as Harvey and Marla pass it. Coach Kevin is talking to one of his football players. "What do you mean he's gay?" The player says, "Warren Baker and Jimmy Quinn saw him rigging with some guy in Harvard Square." What's rigging? "What's rigging?" asks Coach Kevin. It is, apparently, kissing and making out and stuff. Who knew? By the way, Harvard sucks. So does Princeton, Sars. ["Bite me, Eli." -- Sars] Aaanyhow, Kevin points out that "Bobby Renfro's sexual privacy is his business." The player concedes this point, but also asserts that, while no one objects to having him on the team, they don't want to shower with him, because many of them think he's been checking them out. Like he's attracted, and stuff. Coach Kevin gives a look like, "I finally get a story arc, and it's this tired crap?"